Ludwig Beck

Ludwig Beck (29 June 1880-21 July 1944) was a Colonel-General of Nazi Germany who was Chief of the General Staff from 1935 to 1 October 1938, preceding Franz Halder.

Biography
Ludwig Beck was born on 29 June 1880 in Biebrich, Hessen-Nassau, German Empire to an aristocratic family, and he served as a staff officer during World War I. Beck was an old school German officer who was intellectual and conservative, and he never joined the Nazi Party; he agreed with Adolf Hitler only on the matter of making Germany a better country. In 1935 he was appointed as Chief of the General Staff, but he resigned from the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht on 1 October 1938 due to his opposition to Hitler's aggressive war plans, which he saw as leading to disaster. Hitler promised to give Beck a higher command if he kept the resignation secret, but Hitler instead put him in the retirement pool. Beck joined the German Resistance and was a leading figure in the Operation Valkyrie bomb plot against Hitler. He was captured in Berlin a day after the plot, and he was allowed to shoot himself. He only wounded himself, so a sergeant shot him in the back of the neck to finish him off.